Tag: crime thriller

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Review: Last Time I Lied

Rating: 4 Stars

Another good thriller by Riley Sager. Last Time I Lied is the story of Emma, whose first stay at summer camp was cut tragically short 15 years ago. After dreaming of going to the exclusive Camp Nightingale for the longest time, Emma finally got a chance when she was 13 years old. Unfortunately, all three of her much older roommates disappeared without trace after just 2 weeks.

Fifteen years later, still traumatized by the events of that long ago summer, Emma is unable to move on, and keeps painting the three missing girls and hiding them in her paintings. It is evident that she has some unresolved issues that are hindering her creative process and making it impossible for her to move on in life.

When the owner of Camp Nightingale decides to reopen the camp, and invites Emma as an instructor, Emma sees the opportunity to find out what happened to her friends and lay the matter to rest once and for all. But there might be other motives attached in both the owner’s invitation, and Emma’s acceptance of it. For Emma is not as truthful as she seems, and her guilt makes her suspicious of everyone else around her.

The camp is a spooky place, haunted by its past, and things are not made easy with all the rumors and scary stories going around about the land surrounding the camp. The instructors and the family of the owner are all suspicious of Emma and her intentions. In these circumstances, the air is fraught with tension and each page brings a new twist to the tale.

Like all good thrillers, most of the action in this book takes place at night when everything seems more sinister and scary. When Emma fails in every attempt to solve the mystery of the disappearance, the reader also runs out of possible scenarios. As both the past and the present become clearer, it’s difficult to decide whether to trust Emma’s narrative or not.

I liked the end because it was unexpected, yet it made sense. Though in all fairness, it is hard to swallow so many red herrings and dead ends. I had fun reading this book. It is not true psychological thriller, nor is it a mystery in the strictest sense. It is a pleasing mixture of both which makes it a good read for fans of thrillers.

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Review: The Silent Patient

Rating: 3.5 Stars

I read some gushing reviews for The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides which made me want to read it immediately. So, instead of waiting for the book to get to me by post, I opted for the Kindle version which is a kind of instant gratification for impatient people like me. I wouldn’t call the book a disappointment, because it kept me hooked and I really wanted to know where it was going, but I wasn’t blown away by it, like some reviewers I really look up to.

Alicia Berenson is the titular Silent Patient in this book. She hasn’t spoken a word in six years, ever since she shot her husband five times, and tried to slit her own wrists. Theo Faber, a forensic psychotherapist becomes obsessed with her case, and vows to make Alicia better again. From the beginning, you see Theo getting caught up in a web of emotions and personal feelings towards his patient. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether he will be able to come out of the whole thing unscathed.

As the book goes back and forth between Theo’s first person narrative, and Alicia’s diary entries, you get the feeling that something doesn’t add up. It takes a while to work it out, but by the time all is revealed in the book, you have managed to guess more or less what it is. Of course, the fact that I have lost count of the multiple-narrative psychological thrillers that I have read might have something to do with why the twist didn’t hit me really hard.

This doesn’t mean that the book is not worth reading. It is a good book with crisp writing and short chapters that keep you hooked; a page-turner for sure. I really enjoyed reading it, until I came to the part that I didn’t enjoy so much… the ending of the book. I feel the end warranted something explosive and unexpected. I find that when reading such thrillers, I don’t really enjoy neat conclusions. Most writers like to wrap things properly and tie up all ends, which doesn’t make for exciting reading.

Recommended for people who like fast paced psychological thrillers.

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Review: Final Girls

Rating: 4 Stars

Like all hyped books, I thought Final Girls by Riley Sager would be another average read, another book being compared to Gone Girl, another thriller with predictable twists. Thankfully, this time I was wrong. And to be fair, Stephen King didn’t say it was like Gone Girl, he said that if you liked Gone Girl, you will like this book. Which turned out to be pretty accurate as far as I am concerned.

Lisa, Sam and Quincy are popularly known as the Final Girls. It doesn’t matter that they have never met, or that they lead completely different lives, all three of them have one thing in common. They are all the only survivors of different incidents of mass killings; the last ones standing, the girls who lived.

Quincy, the youngest of the Final Girls, has seemingly moved on from the trauma. She lives with her attorney boyfriend, and runs a baking blog. There are things that she keeps hidden from everyone, and a secret dependence on Xanax, but overall, she thinks she is doing fine.

Then comes the news of Lisa’s death in an apparent suicide, and Quincy’s world starts unraveling. She is upset at the way Lisa decided to end her life, and wishes she had tried to meet her at least once. As she struggles with her guilt and grief, Sam turns up on her doorstep unexpectedly, and Quincy is torn between trusting the only other person capable of understanding her demons, or being suspicious of a woman who had previously disappeared from the face of the earth.

When Lisa’s death is ruled a homicide, Quincy is left questioning everything she has ever believed in. Sam’s hold on her life has become stronger, and Quincy can feel herself becoming more and more addicted to her drug of choice. It doesn’t help that she cannot remember what actually happened during the massacre of her friends at Pine Cottage.

Full of twists and surprises, the book also benefits from the unreliability of the narrator. The reader is left guessing, and I for one was completely taken by surprise as the climax was nothing like I imagined. I kept veering from one theory to another all through the book, and couldn’t guess where it was going at all. This, in my eyes, is the best thing about this book.

Definitely a must read for all fans of thrillers.

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Review: The Good Girl

Rating: 3 Stars

I had been thinking about reading The Good Girl by Mary Kubica for a long time. It seemed to be a favourite on Instagram. I was a bit disappointed with it though. First off, there were comparisons to Gone Girl, which is never a good thing. A book should be original and not remind you of any other books. Then, as I read it, I realized that there was nothing in the book (except the “Girl” in its title) to make it seem even remotely like Gone Girl.

The book is told in alternate voices, flipping back and forth in time. One of my most favourite things in a book is to have more than one perspectives of the story. This book, however, failed to catch my interest from the beginning. The start is quite slow, and it takes a long time to come to the point. I was halfway through before I got a bit interested in the story. By that time, I was only interested in knowing what had actually happened and whether my guesses were correct or not.

The love angles in the book seem forced, and if there was ever a case of the Stockholm Syndrome, it is in this book. The character of Mia Dennett is like that of a typical Mills & Boon heroine, perfect and flawless but not valued by her own family. She is the essential poor, little, rich girl who shuns her father’s wealth to live hand-to-mouth while teaching the underpriveleged. The constant refrain of how her own father doesn’t love her becomes too much after a while.

Of course, Mia’s father is shown to be utterly heartless while her mother is utterly helpless. There are too many cliches here to count. Detective Gabe Hoffman works in a strange police department, where he has to tackle only one case at a time, and even when he has other cases, it still leaves him enough time to not only visit Mrs. Dennett, but also keep an eye on Ms. Thatcher regularly!

I would have overlooked all of this if the book had been marketed as anything other than a thriller and a worthy successor to Gone Girl. It is a drama at best, and the only part that might make it a borderline thriller is probably that last chapter.

The Epilogue is definitely something I was not expecting, though it makes me question the palusibility of the whole story, particularly the mental stability of the main character. An average read if you go in without expectations, and keeping in mind the usual books published under this particular publishing house.

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